Telegram Founder: WhatsApp ‘Will Never Be Secure’

We all know very well that the most used instant messaging app, of course, WhatsApp has recently suffered security flaws, as recently, the company itself has shared the information about the links that are passed through the app with third parties, and not only that even just after this security breach, again we discovered about a very serious vulnerability that allowed a hacker to put spyware on our smartphones. Hence, recently, the CEO and founder of the well-known and one of the most secure instant messaging apps, Telegram, Pavel Durov has commented on the case and how social network giant Facebook-owned, WhatsApp deals with its users’ privacy.

Telegram Founder: WhatsApp ‘Will Never Be Secure’

The most used instant messaging app, of course, WhatsApp has recently suffered security flaws, as recently, the company itself has shared the information about the links that are passed through the app with third parties, and not only that even just after this security breach, again we discovered about a very serious vulnerability that allowed a hacker to put spyware on our smartphones.

Hence, recently, the CEO and founder of the well-known and one of the most secure instant messaging apps, Telegram, Pavel Durov has commented on the case and how social network giant Facebook-owned, WhatsApp deals with its users’ privacy.

WhatsApp ‘Will Never Be Secure’

Image Source: DailyStar

As recently, the Telegram founder, Pavel Durov has posted a message on his blog where he simply giving warning that the most used instant messaging app, WhatsApp is not as safe as we think, as when they fix a vulnerability or security flaws, another one simply appears.

As last year a similar security flaw affected WhatsApp video calls, allowing a hacker to access all the data of the users’. Now, in a similar way, and through buffer overflow, it is possible to access all mobile data with just one audio call, and the most shocking thing is that you do not even have to pick up the call.

Although they may seem like simple vulnerabilities which are associated with confusions, hence, the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov says that these are backdoors covered as vulnerabilities. The main problem is that the well-known instant messaging app WhatsApp itself, unlike Telegram, is closed source and they do everything possible thing to hide it, and nobody can investigate their code in search of vulnerabilities as well.

However, operating in the United States is not easy, as Telegram itself has stated that a few weeks ago while operating in the country, the app team received three infiltration attempts by the FBI. For this reason, Pavel Durov affirms that WhatsApp shares its encryption keys with the FBI, so, that they can directly implement those back doors to access messages and information about their objectives.

To support this idea, Pavel Durov claims that Telegram is banned in Russia and Iran, where both governments asked him for encryption keys to access the platform’s messages. Hence for refusing the proposal given by the governments of those countries, the app was banned.

While the most used instant messaging app WhatsApp, despite being American, does operate in both the countries normally. As the existence of back doors is something that spying agencies do for anti-terrorist purposes or geopolitical interests, simply to spy on certain people who may pose a danger to the country.

Image Source: Telegra.ph

Hence, it is permitted for them to do that, but the fact is that by doing so, it simply opens the door for the hackers to discover that vulnerability. Moreover, the founder of the well-known instant messaging app, Telegram, Pavel Durov even goes so far to claim that WhatsApp will never be secure.

In 2012, when he started working on Telegram, WhatsApp sent the messages in plain text, allowing a government, hackers, operators or administrators of WiFi networks to read the messages, which was a real mess.

Despite adding encryption after the launch of Telegram, Pavel Durov says that “this was a marketing tactic since the key to decoding the messages is in the hands of governments like Russia”.

Interestingly, despite having encryption, WhatsApp began to insist users to store backup copies of their messages in Google Drive. With this, the FBI can force the tech giant Google simply to grant them access to a person’s account and be able to read those messages without any issue.

But, if you have not uploaded the messages, then you can simply search for the conversation that you have had with other people and that are uploaded since WhatsApp can give access to the metadata and know with whom and when you are talking.

With this, we have a quite worrying history of WhatsApp, where authorities can access messages in three ways: “By having the encryption key, With messages stored in Drive, And Through the backdoors hidden as vulnerabilities.

WhatsApp has never been 100% secure, unlike the well-known instant messaging app, Telegram, which has not had a single serious security problem since it started 6 years ago and has endangered the privacy of users, as well as no leaks of data appeared.

Hence, Pavel Durov encourages, that users should stop using WhatsApp and start using the alternatives to WhatsApp for their own security. So, what do you think about this? Simply share all your views and thoughts in the comment section below.